If you've never played Super Crate Box. It is one of the greatest things ever and it's free on PC. Play it.

One thing which was hilarious when I reinstalled it on a new PC was the description when you first pick up the Disc gun, it includes an apology, "We are sorry." I didn't realise the significance of that apology when I first played but it's so true, 95% of all deaths in Super Crate Box are caused by the disc gun. Reply+1

Platinum are so good. Unfortunately they never get the commercial success they deserve and with this being a Wii U title that's not about to change. This time I'm one of the Geathjerks not buying their game but it'll be the first title I buy when I eventually get a Wii U. Reply0

A lot of people seem to be very excited about 8GB of GDDR5. I don't think a lot of people understand memory type, speed and bandwidth in relation to PC performance. It's a strange choice by Sony, it seems to bring a lot of expense and doesn't really give you any increased performance.

8GB of GDDR5 doesn't make any sense. At 1080p, GPUs only need 1GB of GDDR5, give that GPU an extra 1GB of GDDR5 at 1080p and you would get little to no performance increase. An extra 7GB of GDDR5 does not magically make the PS4 GPU better than a 7850, memory bandwith is not the issue.

Similarly, memory bandwith is not an issue for the CPU. Having 7GB of GDDR5 does not magically make the CPU in the PS4 better than an Ivy Bridge i5. Having 7GB of GDDR3 vs 7GB of DDR3 would make negligible difference to OS and game operations. Sony is paying for 7GB of expensive GDDR5 for no discernible performance benefit.

Sony would be much better served by dropping the extra GDDR5 and spending the money on a better GPU. Reply-14

I'm a huge fan of the original Xcom and I'm really sad to see some fans of the OG dismissing the new game without even playing it and more specifically calling the new game, "dumbed down".

People arguing that new Xcom is dumbed down clearly have not played it or are confusing having more options with having having more depth. The new game has more tactical/strategic depth not less.

The common thread I'm seeing in the complaints about dumbing down is that the OG let me do this and the OG let me do that and the new one won't. Guess what, more options does not equal depth.

Let me explain, for example from almost at the very start of the new Xcom, you are being asked to choose between taking a medkit, a grenade or a nano-vest for your loadout. I can hear some fans of the original game screaming that this is absurd and Wah, dumbing down. In the original Xcom you would take all three. In new Xcom you are being asked to choose between, being able to heal/revive (medkit), more HP (nano-vest)or cover destruction/guaranteed hit (grenade). The new game has more tactical choice, not less.

This holds throughout the game with countless examples, TU vs action system, soldiers perks are a binary choice, you can only take on one of three missions with multiple factors of sacrifice/reward, launching sats is a choice between rewards and panic levels, etc... Every time there was a choice between sim/realism or making the player have to make a strategic/tactical choice, Firaxis went for making the player have to choose.

I understand that the OG was more immersive because it was more of a simulation with less of these forced choices. I understand some people will hate that the new game forces you to make choices at the expense of immersion/simulation. WTF, I should be able to pick up and use this weapon/medkit/grenade this soldier/alien has dropped. Fuck this console dumbing down bullshit! Well, no, letting you do that makes the game easier/less tactically interesting. Your sniper is dead, you have to adjust your tactics and carry on or abort. Again, the new game forces you to adjust. It's harder, the opposite of dumbing down.

If you are fan of the OG who has played the new Xcom and not liked it. At least acknowledge that you just don't like the way the new game is forcing the player to have to make trade-off decisions.

Just don't complain about dumbing down, it hasn't.

The new game is clearly in the spirit of the original Xcom and if you're a fan of the OG, you should play it before making a judgment. Reply+16

IF this was a scheme that involved gathering evidence that you know won't stand up in court, and doesn't necessarily prove someone is guilty, and then sending out extremely threatening letters to see who pays up, would you still support it?

That's IF.

There is no "IF" here. The people who are arguing that this is somehow accepatable have clearly not grasped what exactly is going on.

It's an extortion racket pure and simple. Obtaining money with menaces and threats. If this was being done by anyone other than a law firm, they would be facing criminal prosecution and a prison sentence.

CD Projekt employed ACS to do this in the UK. In 2010 to 2011 ACS sent out 27,000 letters demanding £500 to £700. The basic gist of the letters was 'pay up or face further legal action.' Not a single case was brough to court.

From this little racket ACS made 10.2 million in gross profit with Andrew Crossley himself pocketing 3.2m.

Actually bring a case to court and losing would bring the entire money-making scheme crashing down around their ears.

In fact when people tried to bring their cases to court to prove their innocence, ACS and MediaCat (the firm providing torrent tracking 'evidence')tried to have their cases dropped. I'm not sure how much clearer it can be that this is a scam.

This is Judge Birrs questioning MediaCat's barrister about his client's decision to drop the case. "I want to tell you that I am not happy. I am getting the impression with every twist and turn since I started looking at these cases that there is a desire to avoid any judicial scrutiny," he told its barrister.

In Feb 2011 rather than actually going to court and having to present their so-called evidence both MediaCat and ACS closed down. No doubt the people behind MediaCat have set up another company and have partnered up with some other dubious law firm to do the same thing again. Andrew Crossley? Well he's OK, he's personally made at least 3.2 million from running a protection racket basically.

Knowing all this I'm not sure how CD Projekt can claim that they are only taking legal actions against users who we are 100 per cent sure have downloaded our game illegally.

No legal action is taking place here. CD Projekt, your law firm and companies like MediaCat are doing everything they can to avoid going to court. Instead you are in effect sponsoring an extortion racket. Reply+8

This is no different than Apple's policy on selling content or subscriptions on the iphone/ipad. All in-game content has to go through the appstore or Steam because they want their cut.

I don't like it but I can understand it from Apple and Valve's point of view. Why let another company sell their own content through your store if you don't get a cut.

Apple were even more restrictive to start with as one of their requirements was that devs and newspaper/magazine publishers were not allowed to sell subscriptions or additional content for cheaper than on the itunes appstore. Which is stunning in it's restrictiveness really. They had to back down because there was a huge outcry.

On the PC this could be resolved if other digital platforms without these restrictive practices were able to challenge steam and that could happen over time. For now steam is incredibly dominant. In the long term my money is on Microsoft offering a appstore pre-installed on windows becoming the major competitor to Steam. Reply+3

I love Steam as much as anyone, witness my posts in the steam forum thread, I don't see this as a bad thing at all. In fact I wish other digital distibuters would up their game. As convenient as it is and as much as we love Valve, having one company entirely dominate digital distribution would be as bad as having one company dominate retail.

Competition drives down prices and increases quality. Let's have more of it. Reply+3

To an extent it was not a fluke. They did everything they could in order to get success. They made a decent enough game with mass appeal and they pushed the marketing for all they were worth once the oppourtunity arose.

Angry Birds had been out for 3 months before Chillingo managed to get Apple to agree to feature AB on the front page of the UK app store. In preparation for this Rovio made a youtube trailer, 42 new levels and a free version.

This jumped Angry Birds from around 600th to 1st in the app store and they have ridden the momentum and publicity wave to maintain a position in the top 10 since then.

Angry Birds was Rovio's 52nd game, they had never had a hit. There's a reason why EA paid $20mill for Chillingo. The crucial factor for success is getting visibility in the app store.

On average 100 games a day are submitted to the app store, that's over 3,000 games a month, 36,000 games a year. The chances of Rovio being able to repeat their success with another game not attached to Angry Birds is minimal, hence why they are just releasing seasons and branching out into other avenues with the Angry Birds brand. Reply+3

No it's not that good, but the reasons for it's success don't have that much to do with how good it is.

Flash is banned from the iOS platform for reasons other than Steve Job's long-standing grudge against Adobe. Allowing Flash would open up a platform for games outside of Apple's control and also lose them their 30% cut.

Google allows Flash on Android and that is a huge concession because it is basically allowing an independent platform for games to run on Android. It would be like Microsoft letting the iOS appstore onto Xbox Live. I have a feeling that it's also the major reason why games sell less well on Android. You can go to sites like http://www.android-games.net and play thousands of free flash games on Android.

In January, Kongregate mobile was pulled from the official Android Market just 2 days after going up. I guess letting someone promote their own independent gamestore through the Android Market was a step too far even for google. Reply+2

Average return on an iphone game is reckoned to be 10-15k. The graph is really warped. Essentially you've got about 20 odd games that have made crazy returns and the rest make pretty much zero.

This.

The average return would be inflated by the runaway hits like Angry Birds, so the typical return is even less than that. I think that most games and apps are probably not even recovering their development cost.

It's a sobering fact for developers that about a hundred games a day are submitted to the appstore. That's 3000 games a month, 36,000 games a year. The signal to noise ratio is depressing. The best game ever made could have been released on the IOS and we would be none the wiser. Apart from games, about 500 apps are submitted a day, so that's 15,000 apps per month and 182,000 apps a year. There must be hundreds if not thousands of apps without a single sale.

Given the mathematics, it's basically a lottery whether you make money or not as an app/game developer. Obviously you have to make a solid decent app/game but the single most important factor is getting noticed by somehow getting yourself into the top 25 to 100 list for your category. To make megabucks you have to be featured and maintain the momentum from that to keep yourself in the top 25 general list for a sustained time.

Angry Birds is a well polished version of Crush The Castle with cute graphics. It's a good game which is simple to grasp and easy to pick up and play in small chunks. But the main reason for its success is getting featured as game of the week. This jumped it from around 600 to 1st in the app store and they have maintained their position in the top 10 since then. I'm happy that Rovio have made a fortune from a decent game, but there is a huge element of luck involved, just from the numbers there must be hundreds of better games that have not made any profit at all. Reply+11

This criminal extortion racket has gone on for a few years now, starting with Davenport Lyons. In this time, tens of thousands of letters have been sent out, each one demanding the paying up of hundreds of pounds or prepare to go to court. To this day not a single case has been brought to trial. Losing an actual court case would bring the entire scheme crashing down around their ears. Whereas just sending out letters demanding money with menaces is making millions. GCB and ACS are just the latest law firms roped in to get in on this scam.

Daily Telegraph article on ACS. In 2010-2011 ACS sent out 27,000 letters demanding money with not a single prosecution brought to court. ACS made £10.2M in gross revenue, with head of ACS Law, Andrew Crossley, personally pocketing £3.2M from this extortion racket. Surprise surprise, Mediacat asks ACS to drop the court cases, which they had no intention of actually going through with anyway. Leaving the way clear for MediaCAT to continue the scam with other unscrupulous law firms.

After three years, probably over a hundred thousand letters have been sent out demanding money now, or face further legal consequences. The fact is, though, not a single case has been brought to trial. It could not be clearer that this is a scam, it is high time the courts put a stop to it. If this was being done by any other company rather than a law firm, they would be facing a criminal prosecution. Reply+3

The relative decline in exchange rate is irrelevant. We are still comparing how much europe/UK is being ripped off at the exchange rate of the respective time.

Quoting myself:

'20% tax on $250 is $300 or about £187.60 in the UK. £220 is about 17% more. We are getting ripped off a little but not that badly.

Compare this to the PS3, which was £425 on launch in the UK. At the time you could have bought the PS3 in the US/Japan for about £230-£250. So Sony was charging us almost a £200 price premium for an inferior (No hardware backward compatability for us Europeans) console.'

Nintendo are not ripping us off to anywhere near the same extent as Sony did.

The 3DS is very expensive for a handheld especially when you compare it to the PS3 and 360 but not that expensive if you compare it to the ipod touch.

Their real problem though is that the casual market which the DS opened up has moved to the iphone/touch/android where people are paying 59p to £3 for games.

There will be early adopter sales, but after the initial rush, I would be very surprised to see the 3DS selling in numbers until the price is brought down to less than the home consoles. Reply+1

He's not that wrong about the hardware itself. The main problem is that it costs the same as a PS3 and more than a 360. If you Ignore the home consoles, the price for the hardware itself is fine. The 3DS is a new product with a, for now, unique technological gimmick. It's just standard business practice to charge a price premium for a new technology with a bit of a 'buzz'. If you compare it to an Ipod Touch, it's a bit more than the cheapest Touch and a bit less than the most expensive one. Also there is backwards compatability with DS/DSi, so I expect many will trade up to defray costs. The main problem is that for gamers, it still costs the same as a PS3 and that is hard to dismiss. If you feel the price is too high, don't buy it. If enough people feel the same, the price will come down soon enough.

The software situation is the real problem. £40 for a game? Smartphones have completely changed the landscape for mobile gaming outside of Japan. You can forget the brain training crowd, they're all playing games for mostly 59p and no more than £3 on iphone/touch/android. That leaves traditional gamers. It doesn't bother casual gamers much, but there are games which need buttons and of course the games are deeper, but judging by comments even we are not prepared to pay home console prices for mobile games. A good portion of us own smartphones too. Outside of Japan the market for dedicated mobile consoles has shrunk back to the hardcore. It's going to be tough market for Nintendo and even worse for Sony for PSP2.

Are we getting ripped off compared to US/Japan? 20% tax on $250 is $300 or about £187.60 in the UK. £220 is about 17% more. We are getting ripped off a little but not that badly.

Compare this to the PS3, which was £425 on launch in the UK. At the time you could have bought the PS3 in the US/Japan for about £230-£250. So Sony was charging us almost a £200 price premium for an inferior console (No hardware backward compatability for us Europeans). I'm surprised there are any Sony fanboys left in Europe after that.

Oh yes and 3 hour battery life for 3D gaming? Good luck with that. Reply+6

Did you play on the 360? I have not played the 360 version of ME and understand that it was slightly clunky, but judging by the number of people who loved it anyway, it does not seem to have put off too many people.

I played on PC and the only issue I had was that the UI and the inventory system was designed by an idiot. The combat mechanics were obviously nowhere near the level of ME2 but they were perfectly fine and pretty fun.

The important point again, is that your experience of ME2 will be far far better if you play ME first. I don't think anyone can argue with that. Reply+2

I will repost what I said in the demo code thread. It needs repeating.

The interactive comic is worse than useless. It is so bad that they have even made a fundamental error (not in the original game) which renders the entire premise of the story logically incomprehensible. The Reapers wipe out all sentient life every 50,000 years not all life ffs.

It is so bad, that if there is an option to start ME2 without playing the comic first, PS3 owners who have not played ME1 should choose that option. If there isn't the option to skip the comic and you are determined not to play ME1 first, you should mute the sound and just randomly select whatever option at the interactive bits. You will actually have a better experience in ME2 if you just ignore the comic.

Let me explain. The thing which makes Mass Effect great is the writing. Yes, once again, you must save the universe (yawn). The thing is though, Bioware do such a good job of creating the universe and the characters which ground you in that universe, that as you play through the game, you start to care about your crew and the universe which they inhabit. So much so, that by the time you have to start making momentous decisions in the game, you will agonise over what to do and you will worry whether you did the right thing afterwards. This was the real triumph of Bioware, you actually give a damn, about your crew, about saving the universe.

The interactive comic has none of this, there is no context to your interaction. Should I choose this option or that one? It doesn't matter, you may as well flip a coin. It basically rips out almost everything which made Mass Effect great and turns it into an anodyne, emotionless, contextless, meaningless failure of an experience.

PS3 owners, Mass Effect is less than £6 on PC, you really should play it first before playing Mass Effect 2. Would you begin a film or novel trilogy with the middle one? Trust me, Mass Effect 2 will be far far better if you play the original Mass Effect first. Reply+6

Just checked out the interactive comic on youtube and I have have to echo Ror1984 here I'm afraid, it is so bad it has left me speechless. It is so bad that they have even made a fundamental error (not in the original game) which renders the entire premise of the story logically incomprehensible. The Reapers wipe out all sentient life every 50,000 years not all life ffs.

It is so bad, that if there is an option to start ME2 without playing the comic first, PS3 owners who have not played ME1 should choose that option. If there isn't the option to skip the comic and you are determined not to play ME1 first, you should mute the sound and just randomly select whatever option at the interactive bits.

Let me explain. The thing which makes Mass Effect great is the writing. Yes, once again, you must save the universe (yawn). The thing is though, Bioware do such a good job of creating the universe and the characters which ground you in that world, that as you play through the game, you start to care about your crew and the universe which they inhabit. So much so, that by the time you have to start making momentous decisions in the game, you will agonise over what to do and you will worry whether you did the right thing afterwards. This was the real triumph of Bioware, you actually give a damn, about your crew, about saving the universe.

The interactive comic has none of this, there is no context to your interaction. Should I choose this option or that one? It doesn't matter, you may as well flip a coin. It's an anodyne, emotionless, contextless, meaningless failure of an experience which basically rips out almost everything which made Mass Effect great.

PS3 owners, Mass Effect is less than £6 on PC, you really should play it first before playing Mass Effect 2. Would you begin a film or novel trilogy with the middle one? Trust me, Mass Effect 2 will be far far better if you play the original Mass Effect first. Reply+1

It's purely economic. If the editor's note at the bottem of this article is accurate, 80% of games released do not make a profit. Cooking Up A Blockbuster Game

Of the games that enter production only 4% make a profit. Of the games that make it to release only 20% are profitable. From this we can also deduce that 80% of games which enter production are cancelled.

These are mind-blowing stats and explains pretty much why we have very little risk taking in the console market. One poor selling game can take down a dev. A few poor selling games can take down a smaller publisher.

It also explains why we will not be getting the PS4 and Xbox 720 anytime soon. Even with the current level of graphical fidelity in games not actually being HD, developers are struggling to keep costs down. A hike in graphical fidelity is the last thing devs need right now.

As Stuart Campbell says, innovation and risk-taking is happening on the mobile front and also the PC indie scene where one-coder or a small team can take the risks which a huge team on a HD title cannot. Reply+1

The publisher has always scammed the dev. Whether you're talking about books, films, CDs or games it's the same.

Your game costs $1 million to develop (funded by the publisher in the form of an advance against royalties).
Your publisher gets $10 (net sales) for every copy of your game they sell.
You (the developer) get 15% of net sales.
If your game sells 500,000 units how much money do you get in royalties?

'I will give you piracy doesn't seem to effect the top selling games in NA but thats about it'

This was all that that I claimed my analysis seemed to show and also that I had no reason to believe the rest of the games would not show a similar pattern of sales.

The North America comment does not make sense. My data was taken from the worldwide data. Is there any reason to believe that VGchartz tracking of sales data would be any less accurate in the major markets of Japan, UK and Europe than the US data.

This leaves Africa and Asia and it would not be surprising for this data to be inaccurate, and possibly in the Middle East data would also be less accurate. But together they represent less than 10% of the market.

Given that the majority of the population of many African, Asian, and Latin American countries are living on a few dollars a day. Does piracy affect sales in these countries where people are barely earning enough to survive? Any piracy going on of $60 dollar games in these places just illustrates my point. These people were never going to buy the games anyway, they couldn't afford to. Reply+1

'... mine was a random sample, yours was inherent flawed, which means mine might be accurate...'

I almost spat out my tea reading this.

The extent of your ignorance in the area of statistical theory is staggering. First of all a sample size of 7 from a population of 400+ is literally useless. Secondly, if you truly believe that your sample was random in the technical statistical sense of the word, it would demonstrate a lack of understanding of statistics at the most basic of levels. It does begin to explain your inability to separate actual data from wild speculation.

Sampling Theory 101

Random is tricky. To get a truly random sample for the population of you say, over 400 multi-platform titles released, this is what you would have to do.

1. Get a list of all multi-platform titles for 2010.
2. Assign a number to every game on the list.
3. Use a random number table to select your sample game from the population. (You could use a random number generator
program but strictly speaking, computers can't really do random numbers. As I said random is tricky.)
4. Remove each sampled game from the population.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you get to your desired sample size.

Statistically, for a truly random sample, for every sample game you select, every single one of the 400+ population of games has to have an equal chance of being selected from the population.

My population of 73 games represents only 18% of a 400 game population and yet you have managed to pick 6 games from my 18% and only 1 game from the 82% (327).

This is not surprising because when you selected the first 7 multi-platform games that came into your head, you would not have even known about a good proportion, say, 250+ of those multi-platform games. The average person can keep about 7 to 11 bits of information in their head at once, the range is about 5 to 20 bits of information. Even if you knew every game in the list and could do the impossible and keep 400+ games in your mind at the same time. It would be a psychological impossibilty for any human mind to give an equal chance to every game to be selected. That's not how minds work, there will be games that are more prominent in your mind, thinking of the first game may already be generating links to other games and many other factors. This is why we use random number tables to generate random samples.

So you only knew of maybe about 150 of the multi-platform games that came out in 2010, so you've already ignored about 65%+ of the games you need to consider to get a random sample. When you selected your 'random' sample, you were selecting from a skewed population of the better known games and some lesser known games that you were interested in. But of course brains can't do random, so even with a knowledge of 150 games, most of the games you recall will be drawn from the selection of the games better known to you or that interest you. This explains why you managed to select 6 games from the top selling 18% and only 1 game from the bottem 82%. Clearly your 'random' sample was not random at all in the statistical sense.

In order to get a random sample, you would have to do what I set out above. To obtain a random sample at the 95% confidence level with a 10% margin of error from a population of 400 would require a sample size of 78, at a 5% margin of error this would require a sample size of 197. This would represent a good 4 to 8 hours of work. Frankly, far more work than I was prepared to do to back up a point on a random forum comment.

Instead given the data available to me, I chose something which was quick for me to do. It is precisely because I understand statistics that I have only made claims which are reasonably backed up by the data. It is also why I made my dataset available and my methodology transparent and open to inspection. It is far more than you have done.

To be told by someone who does not even have a rudimentary grasp of statistical methods that 'you need to understand a bit more math then (sic) you do' is one of the most ludicrous things I've heard in years. It's like Ronald Fisher being told that he doesn't understand statistics by an eight year old. Reply+1

My analysis shows that for the top 18% of titles based on the best worldwide data I can get my hands on, the datasource pointed out by yourself, I might add. Piracy does not seem to have a significant effect on sales at the top of the market.

I have little reason to believe that this pattern would not hold for the bottem 82% of the market. You may strongly disagree but without actually gathering the data and doing the analysis your guess is as good as mine.

You can certainly argue that there are many confounding factors which mean that my conclusions may not be accurate, but since I conceded that point in my very first post and in every subsequent post. I have already said that the situation is a gross simplification it is a little needless to carry on arguing the point. Despite being a gross simplification, I don't see anyone else trying to tackle the question with some actual data.

Speculation and opinion is easy and fun but does not move the argument on. In the spirit of what you seem to like doing, I'll do some speculation myself.

The real install base of the 360 is actually grossly inflated. For about a year before MS accepted that there was a RROD problem and extended their warranty to 3 years, many people including myself had to buy another Xbox 360. Many other people re-bought 360s which failed even after the extended warranty because they didn't know about it. If you add up all the millions of rebought 360s, the millions of pirate consoles in countries where piracy is the norm and the millions of pirate consoles where piracy is not the norm. I estimate the actual real legitimate install base of the 360 is only about 30 million compared to the 40+ million PS3s. Which makes it even more impressive that the 360 is managing to sell slightly more multiplatform games than the PS3. Now either 360 owners as a group buy more software than PS3 owners or some of those pirates are also buying software, either way it seems that software piracy is not having a significant effect on sales of multi-platform games. 8-)

As I said speculation is fun and easy to do but it is not data. Opinion is not fact. Reply0

I'm beginning to wonder if you don't understand logical argument or are merely trolling.

You originally asserted that I was wrong to believe that Xbox 360 outsold the PS3 on multi-platform titles.

I showed you that you were wrong by linking to some actual data that showed that 360 outsold the PS3 on multiplatform titles.

You say my data is out of date and come back with links to just 7 titles to 'prove' that the PS3 sells more multiplatform titles.

I analyse the top 30 multiplatform weekly worldwide data for 2010, this turns out to be 73 titles and again show that although the gap has closed, the Xbox 360 is still selling more multi-platform titles than the PS3.

Now, despite the fact that a dataset of just 7 titles was enough for you to prove that the PS3 is selling more multi-platform games than the 360. Apparently, my data-set of 73 titles despite being ten times more than your own, is now not enough to prove the opposite.

Clearly speculation and opinion which supports your argument must be more valuable than actual data which supports mine. Reply0

Out of the 7 games you linked to in your post the only one which is not in my dataset is Dragonball Raging Blast.

My impression from charts and reports was always that on multiplatform games the 360 seemed to sell more. My analysis of the data backs up my assertion.

If you wish to assert that the PS3 is selling more multiplatform games you are free to do your own analysis to test whether that is true.

Again for the question I'm trying to answer platform exclusives are completely irrelevant. Since the data I have used is from the last 12 months, I'm not sure why you bring up the fact that the 360 had a higher install base years ago.

Again I have already acknowledged that this is a gross simplification (see my earlier post), but as I said we have no way to control for other variables. What we do have is two similar platforms with comparable install bases. We can ask the question 'how significant is piracy on sales numbers?' and by comparing multiplatform game sales we can get a rough answer.

Everything else being equal, if software piracy had a significant effect on sales, you would expect 360 multi-platform games to sell in far lower numbers than their PS3 counterparts. This does not seem to be the case.

From my anaylsis, the top 18% of multi-platform titles in 2010 seem to sell in comparable numbers on both platforms with a slight edge to the 360. Piracy does not seem to affect sales very much. Reply+2

I meant the source for your assertion that PS3 multiplatform titles outsell 360. Since I was discussing multiplatform game sales in regard to software piracy, Sony's overall software sales is completely irrelevant to the discussion. I'm only interested in multiplat game sales.

I wasn't randomly selecting dates for the analysis, the link I gave you was the only piece of proper analysis I could find about PS3 v 360 multiplat sales. Which was why I asked for more recent data.

Thank you for the datasource but randomly selecting games to compare is not data.

I went to VGchartz and at first I was just going to get a list of every multiplatform release in 2010 on 360 and PS3 and compare the sales. Clearly this would be a crazy amount of work. Instead I decided to go to the [link=http://www.vgchartz.com/weekly.php?date=40538&reg=World&date=40181&console=&maker="> Worldwide Weekly Charts, and quickly noted down all the multiplat games which made it into the chart during 2010. Then I went to the same page doomed_soul89 used and got all the sales totals.

So out of the 73 multiplatform games which sold enough to appear in the VGChartz worldwide weekly charts during 2010.

40/73 sold better on 360
6/73 sold the same
27/73 sold better on PS3.

Certainly a lot better than the previous data-set but multiplatform games are still selling more on 360.

Can anyone answer the question this data poses. If piracy is a signicant factor in sales of games why are multiplatform games still selling more on the pirated platform?

Since bits of paper with scribbled totals do not fit through my ISP's datapipes. I've put the data from which I derived the above results into an excel Reply+3

@doomed_soul89
'almost every game that isn't a shooter sells more on ps3, in 2009 fiscal year ps3 sold more software then 360 by alot'

Source?

I have almost never seen a report or chart of a multi-plat game selling more on PS3.

Click on the first graph on this page. The graph compares sales for about 70 multi-plat games from october 06 to march 09. Out of those 70 games only 8 games sell better on PS3 during this period. During the period covered, the Xbox 360 version of the game sold more than the PS3 version of the same game about 90% of the time.

If you have more recent data, please share because that would be interesting. Just saying that PS3 is selling more copies of multi-plat games than the 360 doesn't make it true. Reply+11

You have missed my point though. As a publisher you can cry all you like, thinking you've lost millions of sales.

The reality is this. The Xbox 360 version of RDR outsold the PS3 version 2 to 1. Xbox 360 tops Red Dead sales So despite those 1 million pirate copies of Red Dead on the Xbox 360. The Xbox version of the game has sold millions more than the PS3 version.

Where are all your lost sales? More games are selling on the pirated console than the secure one. Almost every multi-plat game sells more on 360 than PS3. If piracy were a significant factor in sales, every multi-plat game would sell better on the PS3.

This is why I say, pirates were never going to buy your game anyway. Reply+12

How much difference will this make, really? Piracy accounts for some lost sales, no doubt. There is no hard data and nobody seems very interested in trying to do a proper study. I believe almost all pirates were never going to buy those games in the first place.

Consider the fact that Xbox 360 has had pirated games for years. The install base of 360 and PS3 is pretty close. If piracy were that significant a factor in terms of sales, you would expect more sales on PS3. Yet, almost every multi-platform game sells more on 360. Almost every 360 exclusive sells in bigger numbers than PS3 exclusives.

The above is obviously a huge over-simplication of the situation, not taking into account things like friends lists, or whether a significant number of PS3 purchases were for Blue-Ray only, achievements over trophies etc etc ... But obviously we can't control for those variables and on the face of it, this is one of the best datapoints we have on the 'does piracy affect sales?' question.

It's just something I've always found puzzling given that the 360 has been hacked for so long why does it continue to sell more games than the PS3? If piracy were that big a deal in terms of lost sales, the PS3 should be outselling the 360 by a mile on multi-plat games. Reply+12

'Slightly off topic but still cheaper than a MacBook Air and about five times the power. Someone needs to tell Apple they can buy their components cheaper off Amazon, rather than Waitrose or wherever they get them now.'

Apple get their components considerably cheaper than we can off Amazon. It's their customers who pay considerably over the odds.

Kerching! How do you think they managed to overtake Microsoft as the highest market-capitalised company in the world? Reply+1

Online activation is a battle long lost. It doesn't affect many people but there is a tiny fraction of people who have PCs which are not connected to the internet. Online activation was the first step to what eventually became always on.

I seem to remember reading something like 40% of PS3 owners have never gone online with their console so Ubisoft would never dream of using always-online for their console titles.

Dressing up always-online as a benefit to PC users was the funniest PR spin of 2010. Reply+4

As bad09 points out there has been no official word from Ubisoft that they have dropped always-on DRM.

Always-on DRM on single player titles means that people on the move with laptops, netbooks or otherwise do not have internet access cannot play the game they have bought.

The launch-game check may seem to be better but it really isn't. If I don't have access to the internet, for example, I've just moved house, I cannot play the games I have bought. This is completely unacceptable.

The only acceptable response from Ubisoft is to drop both always-on and launch-game check from all titles and to officially announce this. Until then everyone should carry on boycotting Ubisoft's PC titles.

Pirating the titles is not the answer, apart from being morally wrong, Ubisoft just points at all the piracy and carries on with their always-on drm idiocy.

If you must play a Ubisoft title get it on the consoles. If the game you want is not on console. Well, nobody said it would be easy. Write to Ubisoft and explain to them exactly why you have not bought their latest PC title.

The guy from Brink didn't pick Farmville because he thought it was the game of the year. The point is that it is being played by far, far more people than the games that 'gamers' play.

CODBLOPS sold what 7 to 8 million?

Farmville has had over 100 million installs. A quick google seems to indicate about 70 active million players. When it comes to actual numbers of players we are in the minority.

It doesn't matter that they may not make 'good' games by our standards. It doesn't matter that Zynga has made a substantial amount of it's income by committing fraud. Zynga's revenue is over $500million a year with profits estimated at $150million. Only Activision with its Blizzard and COD money making machines is bigger. EA is losing hundreds of millions a year. Whether we like it or not Zynga (excluding the platform manufactureres obviously) is the second biggest game company in the world. They are a huge factor in the industry and that's a crying shame but an undeniable fact. Reply0